Although it has heretofore been suggested that deer decoys should involve motion, none has been developed which provide a safe deer decoy for deer gun season; which will distract the attention of the deer away from the hunter, especially during bow season; and which provides a life-like movement. Consequently, prior decoys do not address the natural instinct of the deer herd to communicate danger or safety with one another; which recognize that deer have poor eye sight and that if deer are any appreciable distance from a stationary decoy that has no movement, the deer are prone to not notice it or recognize it. Existing deer decoys that are on the market are too dangerous to use during deer gun season because they are both full bodied and three dimensionally sculptured to full or reduced scale in all of the X, Y and Z cartesion dimensional coordinates. Hence such deer decoys pose the risk of someone shooting in the direction of the hunter regardless of hunting position relative to the decoy because such full bodied deer decoys appear lifelike from all decoy viewing angles in a horizontal 360.degree. viewing pattern around the same. As far as the present inventor is aware, there are no safe decoys that emulate the movement of deer.
Among the objectives of the present invention are to provide a decoy that is life-like from a limited viewing angle so that no one will notice it or identify it as a deer from a side view; which decoy has a life-like movement of a deer's tail so as to attract the attention of other deer; which deer decoy provides the above in a safe manner for either bow hunters or gun hunters; which has a natural movement that will attract the attention of a deer and minimize the likelihood of the deer noticing the movements of the hunter; wherein the hunter has the ability to control how much movement transpires by the deer decoy's tail through an electronic radio control unit, or through an internal adjustable timing device or via a pull string; which attracts and draws deer to the decoy that would otherwise have not come in the area where the hunter would have a safe and clear shot at the game; and which is economical to manufacture and effective, reliable and durable in operation and use.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a plastic body comprising two halves is provided which is a hollow three dimensional sculpture or body of the rear end of a deer in a standing position. The decoy replication of a deer is sculptured to full or reduced scale of a real deer along the X and Y coordinates, but made out-of-scale very thin along the Z coordinate. One side (exterior) of each half is a replica of a deer's rear end and the other opposite (interior) side is open and hollow the edges being flat. The sculpture includes a separate tail. This sculpture is duplicated and the two pieces are attached back to back to each other. There is a support system inside the hollow area of the two attached sculptures for the purpose of holding an electronic device which includes a small motor, rheostat, radio control, battery and metal drive rod which protrudes out of both sides of the decoy for purpose of attaching the two tails for conjoint rotation with the drive rod. This mechanism will enable the tails to move simultaneously to the right and the left (as separately viewed when looking at the opposite main exterior duplicate surfaces of the decoy) in a quick motion to simulate the life-like movement of a deer's tail when it is not alarmed and at rest. The amount of movement is controlled by the hunter with an internal timing device, or by a radio signal from a hand held transmitter or by manually pulling on a tail-attached string.
The decoy has two dowel rods stored inside the legs for the purpose of mounting the decoy in a standing position in the field. These rods are stored inside the decoy's legs and held there with a metal snap pin. Then the dowel rods are removed from inside the decoy and are pushed into the ground part way. The decoy is then slid onto the rods that are sticking out of the ground, in the same channels in the legs where the dowel rods were stored. The snap pins that were used to keep the legs secure while stored are then used to keep the dowel rods from sliding further into the leg storage area. The rods hold the decoy spaced approximately 12" off the ground. The height of the decoy including the dowel rod legs is preferably approximately 36" tall off the ground. On the top of the decoy, there is a hollow area for the purpose of holding a bottle of deer scent or a cotton swab of deer scent.
In another embodiment of the invention, the deer decoy comprises a solid plastic body wherein opposite main facing sides again each simulate a rear end of a deer. The decoy preferably also includes a removable plastic body having opposite main facing sides simulating a deer head, and removably carries thereon a set of solid plastic antlers. As in the first embodiment, the decoy replication of a standing deer hind end (as well as head and antlers) is sculptured three-dimensionally generally to life-like scale as to its X-Y dimensions in the decoy plane perpendicular to principal decoy viewing axis, whereas the Z dimensions of the decoy in the direction of this principal viewing axis are greatly reduced from the X-Y scale so as to render the decoy very thin and hence unnoticable, or at least unrecognizable as a deer, when viewing the decoy from either side (i.e., in a viewing angle range of say 90.degree. centered on the Y axis perpendicular to the main decoy viewing on Z axis).